


The True Mayor Of Gravity Falls

by BrownieFox



Series: Mayor In All But Name [1]
Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: AU, Gen, Kinda, in which stan is gravity falls
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-27
Updated: 2019-10-30
Packaged: 2021-01-04 03:56:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,132
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21191159
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BrownieFox/pseuds/BrownieFox
Summary: In which the people chose Stan, and the title means more than just a political position in this town.





	1. Chapter 1

So here’s the thing.

Stanley Pines tosses his fez hat into the ring. He campaigns, he goes to every debate, and even if it wasn’t all ‘him’ doing the work, it was still Stanley Pines that the citizens of Gravity Falls were steadily won over by. It’s all set in stone when he climbs to his niece and nephew’s aid, pelted by bird seeds. He holds the two of them as they fall into a pile of it - not exactly a soft landing but not the worst Stan has had to live through - and the eagle kisses (what the actual hell??) Stan’s head. 

He’s able to forget about his twin on the drive back home, about the inferiority he’d been feeling, even the betrayal of his niblings seems distant. Instead he just feels warm and happy and close to tears because there had been people cheering for _ him, _ had wanted _ him _to lead them. He glances in the rear-view mirror. Mabel’s hair is still full of bird seed, and the pale rock dust is still prominent on Dipper’s vest. They’re fast asleep and Stan’s wide grin gets a little smaller, a little warmer. 

Soos is driving back to the shack behind them, windows rolled down and belting the lyrics to a song on the radio. In his good mood, Stan hums along.

The reveal of Stan’s crimes isn’t too much of a surprise, because things can’t go right for Stan too long. The world would simply explode if that happened. Tyler Cutebiker is named as they mayor of Gravity Falls, and while the list of Stan’s crimes scroll almost endlessly it occurs to Stan that he hadn’t rolled his windows down in the car. He hums a few bars of the song he’d thought he’d heard Soos listening to. Perhaps he’d imagined it. He shrugs it off and ruffles Mabel’s hair, and sits back, wrapped in the warm-happy feeling.

It doesn’t occur to anybody what has happened here today. 

Tyler Cutebiker may handle all the political work, but Gravity Falls chose Stanley Pines.

oOo

The next morning, Stan feels a dull thrum in the back of his skull and groans. A headache just as he wakes up, just his luck. It’s not too painful, though, just a bit annoying, and he huffs and shakes his head.

The thrum doesn’t go away. 

Stan takes a midday nap and dreams of Greasy’s Diner. He dreams of people coming in, eating their meals, leaving. It’s an uneventful dream, and boring.

He wonders if the magic light bulb Ford put in the kitchen has other effects that his brother hadn’t mentioned. He swears he can smell better recently - which is a, quite frankly, crazy claim to make and think about, but for the past few days as he sits on the porch, looking out at the woods, he swears the smell of pines and dirt and wind are stronger than they’ve ever been. 

Stan usual nightmares visit him less often as he has an ever increasing amount of odd and boring dreams. He dreams of the woods in the middle of the night, quiet and calm, deer prancing through them. He dreams of a bar filled with fantasy creatures, watching two gnomes get into a drunken brawl. He dreams of his own brother, messing with things in the basement. Ford can’t go out in public, but Stan remembers those early days where people barely recognized ‘Stanford’ and knows that this is exacly the life Ford used to live here. 

When Stan goes to prank the tourist traps everything is fine up until the drive home. It feels like there’s ants or spiders skittering up his spine. He speeds a little more than he usually does. The surprise and anger at what’s been done to his shack - no, wait, Ford’s house - rattles through him, but the prickling feeling fades and he knows with an absolute certainty when the pranksters are out of the town limits by how the tension he’d been holding in his shoulders ease. 

oOo

No matter what Ford or his dad might say and think and yell, Stan’s not an idiot. He realizes that there is Something with a capital ‘S’ going on with him. He knows Ford would find it interesting, would want to investigate whatever This is. So Stan stubbornly doesn’t tell Ford about it, and it does kind of feel like a victory.

He doesn’t tell Soos, either, but he does tell Soos more than he tells anybody else.

“Hey, Soos. Go out to the middle of the woods.”

Ever-loyal Soos doesn’t even ask why, just “Okay Mr. Pines” and hops in the golf cart. Soos pauses only for a moment, asking “Uh, where in the woods?”. 

“Surprise me.” 

Stan watches Soos leave and then goes back inside, sitting in his favorite armchair and closing his eyes but not falling asleep. What he’s about to attempt seems crazy, but at this point Stan’s life is the dictionary definition of insane. 

First it’s just dark, and he feels like an idiot. Then he strikes on something when he remembers the thrum. It’s been there for long enough that he doesn’t even notice it anymore, but it’s still there. He concentrates on it, reaches for it, and then…

Then he can smell gasoline. 

The gasoline almost-but-not-quite masks the smell of the woods. He continues to fall into that thrum, hearing a squirrel chittering angrily at something or other. An image starts to take shape behind Stan’s eyelids. Towering pine trees, and golf cart tracks in the dirt. 

With only a bit more effort, he follows them to Soos.

oOo

There is something wrong in the air. 

A kind of unease that sends a shiver up and down Stan’s back. He stands on the porch, staring at the treeline as if it will give him answers. 

It doesn’t.   
  


He closes his eyes, having only to still his mind for a heartbeat to find his family. He can see Ford and Dipper near the shack. They’re talking about something, but Stan’s current vantage point isn’t close enough to hear them and he’s sure whatever they’re saying will just make him angry. He almost listens in anyway.

Instead he chases down Mabel and his heart breaks when he finds her. She’s bundled up in her sweater, crying and sobbing. 

A man approaches her who feels so strongly Wrong that it throws Stan for a moment. He’s found there’s a difference between animals and creatures and tourists and people who live in Gravity Falls. Why he can tell that, he’s not sure. He also doesn’t particularly care. What he does care about it how the man sends off every kind of danger radar Stan has - both new and magical and old and gained from experience. 

He opens his eyes back up, twisting around, trying to figure out which direction Mable is in. His heart is beating in his chest loud and fast and panicked. 

“Mabel!” He shouts. “Mabel, get away from him!”

He picks a direction he feels good about and starts running. He only makes it to the trees before the sky darkens, shifts to a blood red, and Stan feels like he just got kicked in the stomach. The pain doesn’t stop, coming from his bones outwards, and he cries out for only a moment before the all-encompassing pain becomes too much and he blacks out.

oOo

Stan feels old. 

Stan feels tired. 

Stan feels _ angry _ and _ scared _ and _ furious _ and _ so so very lost. _

The thrum has never been louder, never been more prominent. The pain he’d felt before passing out still exists, a constant thing that only serves to make him angrier, but it’s left his bones and his marrow sings with the thrum of voices and cries. He can see the town of Gravity Falls, or what once was the town. He can see a giant pink bubble that no matter what he does, he can't get in.. He can see the shack, a safe haven thanks to the unicorn-hair barrier, and the terrified survivors of all kids that it holds. He can see the giant pyramid floating in the sky that’s numbing to look at and harder to look into, but he does just that and sees a throne made out of people and Ford a golden statue.

And Stan decides that he can’t lie here any longer. 

He’s a jumble of emotions and he’s going to do something about that. 

It’s not quite Stanley Pines that stands up, though. It’s still him, of course, but it’s also much much more than that. 

His hair is grass, his skin is dirt and stones and boulders. There are trees sticking out of him, not willing to give up their hold on the ground. He pulls himself to his hands and knees first, freeing himself from the earth and shaking off dirt like a dog. He stands up fulling, still next to the shack near where he had fallen, dwarfing it, and is very aware of the screams of fear coming from inside. 

And Gravity Falls rises to protect its own.


	2. Chapter 2

Pacifica had drawn the short straw.

It had been a rather literal piece of straw. Old Man McGucket of all people had been chosen as Head of House, Leader of the Gravity Fall Citizens. It was a fancy title for ‘guy who made sure everybody bumming in the Mystery Shack didn’t kill each other before Bill did’. The town kook had gained the title seeing oddly enough he was the one who had the best grasp on what was going on. The straw-drawing had been about who was supposed to leave the shack and brave the woods for various tasks. In Pacifica’s case, it had been who would go foraging for food. She was in the strong belief that that Manotaurs were rather clearly the best for this, as she had no experience with what was and wasn’t edible, nor any fighting experience. But if you wanted to hide in the Shack, you had to live by the rules, and Pacifica knew she had even less of a chance of survival on her own or in any of the other small groups of ‘resistance’.

She'd survived the outing, spending what was probably a few hours (not that time was really functional right now) walking all the way to town, dodging eye-ball bats and various other monsters while shoving as much as possible from the abandoned houses into her bag. Things took a turn, however, as she walked into the clearing around the Shack. So close to safety, so close to finally being able to rest again.

The ground shook and heaved underneath her, and Pacifica screamed. She had enough sense to throw her bag as far as she could in the direction of the Shack before dropping to the ground, hugging and shutting her eyes as tight as she could. What was this? Another thing of Bill’s doing? Had some kind of monster been stalking her this whole time and she hadn’t noticed, and now it was making its move?

The ground rose, and then shook more violently, and then rose once more. Pacifica, not very strong to begin with and already pretty exhausted from the day’s trek, screamed again as her tightly hold on the ground loosened, muscles to tired, and she let go of the now very vertical surface, falling through the air.

And then caught by a very large and grassy hand.

Pacifica layed there on what felt like the ground, curled up and shaking. What would she see when she opened her eyes? A set of teeth, seconds away from eating her? Eyebats, ready to carry her off to be apart of that chair of stone people?

But then the stress and anxiety and fear bleed out of her. She finds the strength to sit up, wipe the tears from her eyes, as something warm blossoms in her chest that makes her start to cry again, but for another reason. She felt… not safe, that’s wrong. It’s something else, and she’s distinctly reminded of how the lever to open the mansion’s gate felt in her hand. That’s what she feels, and she opens her eyes.

Two giant glowing eyes stare back at her, but Pacifica doesn’t feel scared. She feels brave. 

It’s a monster made of dirt and grass, trees and bushes and mushrooms and stone an rock. The shape of it is vaguely human, and below the two huge glowing eyes the dirt parted; a mouth.

The monster had no voice. The noise it made wasn’t understandable. It sounded like rumbling rocks, chirping birds, the mall when it was bustling with people. 

“Whoa.” Pacifica said. The hand she sat it slowly lowered to the ground and she climbed off.

“Pacifica!” Old Man McGucket stood in the doorway of the Shack. His eyes were wide and made a big gesture with his arm. “Get back across the barrier!.”

“Oh, right.” Pacifca stood back up and found herself waving to the big giant as she hopped off the hand, walking without any haste back across the well-marked line around the Shack and picking up her bag of food. 

“You’ll stay back, if you know what’s good for you!” McGucket threatened the monster. A laugh of a thousand voices came from the monster, and with ease, it moved it’s hand across the barrier. 

oOo

When Mabel, Dipper, Wendy, and Soos finally got to the Mystery Shack, they found a whole crowd of people standing outside of it, crowded around a giant dirt man. Standing in the cupped hands of the giant dirt man was McGucket. They’re welcomed by the group. The manotaur’s cheer over Dipper’s survival, Candy and Grenda basically squeeze the life out of Mabel, Robby and Wendy share a handshake that turns into a hug, and Soos looks around for Grunkle Stan while getting ‘congratulations on surviving!’ by people he’d helped back when he’d been the desperato of the wastes. 

“Who’s this?” Dipper asked, motioning to the dirt giant. The hands were lowered and McGucket guided Dipper and Mabel onto them. 

“Can’t you feel it?” He asked. There was something familiar about the giant, something they couldn’t put their finger on. The image of stepping off the bus when they’d first arrived at Gravity Falls flashed through both of their minds, but they weren’t filled with the same strong emotions Pacifica had felt. “It’s Gravity Falls!”

“Gravity falls?” Dipper asked. He wasn’t sure what he was supposed to be feeling. The familiarity was still there. He sniffed a bit, and past the smoke that hung every-present in the air he could smell… the Shack? The inside of the Mystery Shake, the TV room.

“We’ve been trying to figure ‘im out, but I think I’ve got it!” McGucket explained, patting one of the earthy thumbs. “Bill’s waves of weirdness must’ve made the town itself into a real entity, like it did for that fella down there.” He pointed to Rumble McSkirmish. It made just as much sense as anything else did. “And what’s more, Gravity Falls has a plan!”

oOo

Ford is saved from the Fearamid by a small crew of people, both in numbers and in size. 

He recognizes the two of them from pictures that Mabel had shown him of her friends, and they use a flashlight with one of the height-changing crystals to shrink both Ford, the odd tap-dancing boy, and one of the stone people from the chair, now becoming flesh and bone again once freed from the chair. Of course, a flashlight with the crystal! How had Ford not thought of that? 

“C’mon, we need to get moving!” One of them shouted, grabbing Ford’s hand and running to a hole in the Fearamid wall that had been knocked out when Bill had left, radiating anger and even forgetting to freeze Ford again before leaving. A miniature small robot pterodactyl flew by and the four of them jumped off the ledge and onto it’s back, the tap-dancing kid having to be dragged screaming. It’s not a soft fall onto the metal contraptions back, but it is survival and at this point it’s the more than Ford could ask for.

Outside of the Fearamid, he can now also see what’s distracted Bill.

In the charred Weirdmaggedon wasteland that was once Gravity falls, awash in black and reds and oranges, there is a creature of lush greens, like it had been carved out of the forest and brought to life. Some kind of golem, perhaps? Was there some kind of witch that lived here that Ford hadn’t known about, but had decided to create a guardian now in this desperate times? For the most part it was humanoid in shape, but as Ford watched it fighting against Bill, it shifted form, the dirt easily slipping out of attempts to be grabbed and becoming a snake that attempted to constrict Bill’s movements. Bill broke free, but the golem was undeterred in its attack.

“What the hell is that?!” The teenager in the tight jeans screamed, pointing in the direction of the fight. Whether he was referring to Bill or the golem, Ford wasn’t really sure, and it was entirely possible he was screaming about both of them, or this entire situation. 

“We’ll explain later!” The young asian child shouted back at them. Ford watched the fight. What could have the power to match Bill blow for blow? His initial thought must be wrong, this was clearly no simple golem, not even a complex one. Neither being was gaining the upper hand, but neither seemed willing to back down. There was something about what Ford assumed was the earth creature’s default form - the humanoid appearance - that was familiar, though Ford couldn’t quite remember from where. He didn’t recall coming across a creature like this during his travels…

The miniature pterodactyl landed in a large clearing. It was empty at first, but as they flew closer and closer, people started to emerge from the surrounding woods. The two people that had saved them hopped off, not bothering to return themselves to normal size but using the flashlight on Ford and his fellow recently rescued acquaintances.

“GRUNKLE FORD!”

Twin yells caught his attention as two small bodied ran right into him, arms wrapped tightly around him. 

“Kids!” Ford knelt down, the children’s holds on him loosening next enough so he could wrap his arms around them as well. There were solid and real and alive, a relief that Ford hadn’t realized he’d needed until now. There was a burning in his eyes, but he had never been much of one for tears and there was still the end of the world around them. He did, however, allow himself to kneel there a little longer than was perhaps necessary.

When he looked back up, he assessed the other few people here. Mabel’s friends were talking to a man with a long white beard, lots of nodding going on, before the two went back to the robot and flying off once more. The man was Fiddleford, Ford realized with no small amount of surprise. Stan and the kids had told him about the state his friend had fallen into, and Ford hadn’t doubted the possibility, but it was still another thing to see it with his own eyes. 

Soos and Wendy were there as well, both looking at Ford and the twins. Mabel ran over to them, shouting about Ford being alive and okay and Wendy reassuring the excitable girl that she could see that. The only other person in the clearing was a girl probably Mabel and Dipper’s age wearing a sweater with a llama on the front - undoubtedly one that Mabel had made - and standing a bit awkwardly off to the side. 

“Not that I am ungrateful for the rescue,” Ford said, all eight off the pairs of eyes turning to him, “But why just us three? Is this… Fiddleford, do you have a _ plan? _” A plan sounded almost too good to be true, a plan that even had the smallest amount of success would be like an oasis in this desert. Ford did have an idea in the back of his own mind, the llama on the young girl’s shirt reminding him of something he’d seen long ago, but there was no way to know if it’d work…

“It’s The Falls’ plan really.” Fiddleford said. “Speaking of which, let’s get them over here.” He stomped the ground twice and the distant sound of fighting quieted down. 

“Alright dudes, into the field.” Soos guided everybody out of the edges of the woods and further into the clearing. Ford looked up at the sky and back at the edge of the charred woods. They really offered little protection, but it was better than nothing.

“Don’t worry, Grunkle Ford!” Mabel smiled brilliant and bright, grabbing one of his hands and pulling him into the clearing. “We put up a barrier around here like we did with the Shack!” Ford gave the clearing another look, and yes, now that he was looking for it he could see moonstones in three different places.

“We still had all that extra mercury in the basement, and one of the unicorns was taking refuge in the Mystery Shack and was willing to let us use some of her hair.” Dipper explained. Ford looked at just how big the clearing was and Dipper amended, “Okay, a lot of her hair.” 

“We threatened to forceablly shave her!” Mabel added cheerfully. Ford gave the people in the clearing a look, and something bothered the back of his mind.

“Kids, have you seen Stanley?” He felt bad for how quickly the words soured the two children’s moods. Dipper shrugged and Mabel shook her head, eyes trained on the ground. “I’m sure he’s fine. My brother has always been resourceful.” Ford assured them, not really believing it himself. There’d be time for mourning later. Right now they had some kind of plan apparently to carry out. “Although, I still don’t know why rescuing those two kids was important.” 

“Robbie and Gideon.” Mabel supplied the names. 

“The Falls’ said we only needed you three, and it was a lot easier than trying to smuggle out an entire chair of people.” Fiddleford was staring out at the center at the clearing. 

“The Falls?” 

The ground rumbled and shook. Ford looked around, searching for which of Bill’s minions was causing this. The center of the clearing buckled first, as if it were about to become a sinkhole, before becoming convex. The not-golem ripped itself free from the ground, ‘skin’ originally having the same dark colors as the rest of the landscape before becoming the healthy green once more. 

“Took you long enough to get here.” The llama-sweatered girl said, crossing her arms and grinning up at the monster. Where its mouth would’ve been the dirt parted, boulders like teeth returning the grin. It leaned down and put its palm on the ground, a noise coming from its mouth that sounded like a storm. 

“Alright, get acquanted real quick and let’s get this show on the road.” Wendy nudged Robbie with her elbow. 

“You want me to walk right onto the hand of a monster?!” Robbie shouted, looking between the monster and Wendy. She rolled her eyes and shoved him onto it. When the hand didn’t close and immediately crush him, and the other seven people nodded encouragingly at Gideon and Stan, they joined Robbie on the hand. It felt just as solid as the ground they had been standing on, and he watched as both Robbie and Gideon relaxed as they stared up at the two glowing eyes of the creature. 

A memory flashed through his mind, so sudden and unexpected and odd that he reached for a gun he didn’t actually have on his person at the moment. Standing on the plot of land he’d bought, imagining what the house would look like, and there was an odd and nostalgic smell that accompanied the memory, a smell that didn’t coincide with the memory…

“Fiddleford kept calling you ‘The Falls’. Are you… Gravity Falls itself?” 

Gravity Falls nodded and shrugged in the same gesture, then looked to Fiddleford and nodded again, hand tilting and encouraging the three of them to walk back off of it.

“Whoa, that was _ weird.” _Robbie stressed, but he didn’t seem to be afraid anymore. 

“Of course, as the town itself, it must be able to use our own memories of it to convey things to us.” Ford mused, continuing to stare up at the creature. “Can it not talk, then?” 

“Not as far as I can tell. Took a lot of trial n’ error t’ figure out who they wanted us to get.” Fiddleford batted one of the fingers of the hand, then spoke to Gravity Falls. “We all set then?”

Gravity Falls crumbled out of the humanoid form, but the scattered remains didn’t stay that way for long. They came back together to form something with four short and flat limbs, a rounded back, and a oval-ish head. A turtle, Ford realized after a moment. Admittedly one far bigger than he’d ever seen in this dimension, and with a lot more grass and trees and mushrooms than it should have, but a turtle nonetheless. In fact, if he was being specific, it was a sea turtle. 

The nine of them climbed onto Gravity Falls’ back. There were patches where there were no grass that Ford recognized almost instantly. The odd zodiac he’d seen in the caves, the one he’d just been thinking about, was right there. 

“Of course! If the natives of Gravity Falls knew about the Zodiac, the town itself would too!” The wheel was laid out before them. The order was different than he’d seen it before. Did the order matter? Could it do different things depending on the order of the symbols?

“THERE YOU ARE!”

Apparently now wasn’t the time for such questions, however, as Bill hovered overhead. Robbie and Gideon both screamed while the others got into their positions, making sure Gideon and Robbie found theirs as well. He watched as Bill banged on the magic forcefield, unable to get to them. There had been a small (okay, large) part of Ford that had worried that Fiddleford and Dipper had set up this barrier incorrectly, but it seemed to be holding just fine. They were safe here. 

Bill was shouting, screaming, threatening, _ begging _, but Ford did his best to block it out. It didn’t matter what the demon said, they were this close to this all being over. He wasn’t going to let Bill take another second of his time. As he approached his spot - the six-fingered hand, clearly - the smell returned. Salt-water, he noted, and blinked quickly as tears unexpectedly sprang to his eyes. It’d been a long time since he’d been to the ocean, this Earth’s ocean. Somewhere between thirty and forty years.

Ford’s brow furrowed. Something wasn’t quite right here. 

And he wasn’t talking about how the zodiac had ten symbols but there were only nine people. In the spot where the tenth symbol was supposed to be, a birch tree sat tall and resolute. One of the lenticels resembled the symbol, and it had two branches on either side of it that were low enough to grab a hold of. 

“Now what?” The llama sweater girl asked, looking at them in what was probably supposed to be an unimpressed expression (a kind of expression Ford was all too familiar with) but instead revealed her own anxiety. As if in answer to her question, another memory flashed through Ford’s mind along with a shiver up his spine. A cold cave, his first real mystery. Ford, reassuring Stan that he was a good kid and helping his brother out of the shallow pool. He could practically feel the damp hand held in his own again, could see the hopeful look his brother gave him. 

“We’re supposed to hold hands.” Ford said. “I’ve had to take part in similar rituals before. The completed circuit is integral to the spell.”

“Like in Half-Iron Pharmacist!” Soos wasted no time in grabbing onto one of the tree’s branches and Wendy’s hand. It took some cajoling from Mabel and Dipper to convince Pacifica to take hold of Fiddleford’s hand. Ford tried not to notice how when Robbie grabbed his hand the teenager had fumbled around a bit, trying to figure out how to get a comfortable hold on a six-fingered hand. 

Two things finally settled in Ford’s gut as he took his own hold on the tree.

1) He’d seen the tenth symbol on Stanley’s fez hat he seemed rather insistent on wearing.

2) Why would a landlocked town take the shape of - or for that rather even know - a sea turtle?

Blue energy surrounded them, glowing along the lines of the circle. So many thoughts ran through Ford’s head as the zodiac actually worked. What was it about them that made this special? Could there be several different people who would fit the role of one of the zodiac? If they hadn’t been able to pull this off, would there’ve been a different way to defeat Bill?

But the most prominent question that pushed off the others aside was ‘where is Stanley’.

Energy flowed between them, whirling in a circle, kicking up a wind. The smell of salt water grew stronger. He could feel the energy surging through his veins, a different kind of burning than the electricity Bill had shocked him with but remarkably similar in how it seized up his muscles. He couldn’t have let go of the circle if he wanted to. 

All at once, the energy condensed into an orb in the middle of them all that flew into the air, beyond the protection of the forcefield. The salty coastal air left with it. It looked like it was made of white and blue flames, and this time as it took on a humanoid form - nothing more than a silhouette - Ford recognized it. 

“Stanley!” Ford shouted as he fell to his knees. The spell left him feeling drained, and by the collapsing of the others he could tell he wasn’t the only one. The being of energy - Stan, or Gravity Falls, or whatever it was now - opened its arms wide and welcoming and laughed loud and clear. At first it sounded like a thousand different people laughed at once, but they tapered off until there was only Stanley’s coarse laughter left. 

“You're a real wise-guy, Bill.” Stanley said. His voice rang loud and clear, and Ford wouldn’t be surprised if the whole town could hear it. Both Dipper and Mabel made surprised sounds at their grunkle’s voice, but they sounded far away and distant as Ford stared up at his brother. “I would know. But you made one fatal mistake: you messed with my town!" 

The word ‘town’ wasn’t alone, though. The word ‘Family’ echoed over, both words said at the same time. 

Bill screamed and charged at Stanley. Stan kept his arms open wide, and when Bill reached him he sank into the blue-and-white being. It became an orb again, hanging there for a few brief moments. Ford lifted a useless hand. Stan was too far to reach now. Who was to say that was even still his brother? 

And then it burst.

The rift in the sky sucked up the rest of the demons, taking the Fearamid with them, and then sealed back up. The blue fire from the being fell on the town, every inch, and Ford ducked but there was nowhere safe. But the fire didn’t burn. It swept across the town like a healing balm, revitalizing the grass and fixing the damage caused by Weirdmaggedon. 

Ford looks back at the sky, where he had last seen his brother, before the exhaustion took hold and he blacked out.

oOo

_ “You know what I like about your hands?” _

_ Ford looked up from the map he’d been drawing. He was sitting on the Stan O’ War with Stan. Stan was leaning against the mast, flipping through a book that eventually Ford recognized as his Journal 1. _

_ “What?” Ford asked, setting his pen down. The air was so salty, and when he glanced off the small boat he could they were out at sea. He frowned. That wasn’t right. The Stan O’ War had never made it to sea. Stan had been uncharacteristically quiet for a bit now, but he reached out and grabbed one of Ford’s hands, slotting his fingers into the spaces between Ford’s. _

_ “Nobody else’s can do that.” Stan pointed out. “That’s pretty cool.” _

_ “I guess it is.” Ford felt Stan squeeze his hand. _

_ “Ford?” _

_ “Yeah Stan?” _

_ Ford looked at Stan’s face, but it was hard to see it while it was on fire like that. He got the distinct impression that Stan was looking at him, though. _

_ “I’m sorry.” _

_ And Stan burned away. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So


	3. Epilogue

oOo

Ford woke up to Dipper and Mabel desperately shaking him. 

“C’mon Grunkle Ford, you have to wake up!” Mabel sounded close to tears. Ford groaned, rolling over and sitting up before being tackled back to the ground by his niblings once again trying to squeeze the life out of him. 

The other nine of the zodiac were already awake, and Mabel and Dipper said they’d already started the walk back to town. 

“Grunkle Ford, why did you call Gravity Falls Grunkle Stan?” Dipper asked. Ford looked at the Birch tree.

“I’m not sure how, Dipper, but that being was at least partially my brother.” Ford stood, legs shaky for a moment but Dipper and Mabel helped him stay up until he could stand on his own again. He still felt tired, like he could lay there in the grass for thirty years. 

“But, if that was Grunkle Stan…” Mabel said. She shook her head but Ford nodded. “No, no he’s fine, he has to be fine!” Mabel insisted. Ford didn’t know what to say as his niece started to cry. 

“You two should get back to the Shack.” He said, rubbing circles into Mabel’s back while Dipper held her tightly. He wasn’t saying anything, which matched up with his speechless look. 

“What about you?” Mabel asked, voice watery. Ford sighed. 

“I need to clear my mind.”

Ford didn’t know where he wanted to go. All he knew was that it felt like there was a hole in his chest that had been created when he’d watched the glowing ball of light explode. 

He may not have had a destination in mind, but his feet knew where they wanted to go, and he found himself at Lake Gravity Falls. He walked down one of the piers, sitting down on the edge and dangling his feet off of it. 

Ford’s shoulders sagged and he felt his eyes grow warm again.For years his brother had been ‘dead to him’ him in the figurative sense, and then when he’d left this universe he’d accepted he’d never see Stanley again. It shouldn’t hurt this much for Stanley to actually be dead. But it did. 

Ford had never been the emotional one of them. Stan wore his heart on his sleeve, and the jabs at Ford’s hands had become something he got used to. But here, on this dock, Ford felt the emotions churning around his chest, too strong to ignore, and while letting a shaky breath tears slipped down Ford’s face. His eyes slipped closed.

When he opened his eyes again, the face of the gobblewonker stared back.

Ford jerked back, hand flying to his belt and being reminded once more that Bill had destroyed his gun. The gobblewonker sniffed Ford and then dove back into the water. Ford followed its path through the water as it swam to Scuttlebutt Island. That’s when Ford saw the figure floating in the water. 

“Hello? Are you okay?” The person didn’t reply, didn’t move, and Ford cursed under his breath. Of course it was too much to hope that the zodiac had saved everybody. “If you can hear me, I’m coming out there!” 

Ford stripped off his coat and boots before jumping into the lake. It was cold, and he was reminded of just how tired he still was. But there was either a living or dead person out there, and even if it was a corpse, their family still deserved to have a body to bury.

It was Stanley. 

“Stan!” Ford shouted, swimming faster and harder. He was covered in a network of pale scars, especially bad around his left eye. He grabbed Stan’s wrist. It was faint, so hard to feel, but there was a pulse.

And Ford cried again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> not super happy with how this turned out, but also i felt bad leaving it with stan 'dead' even though I as the offer knew he wasn't. 
> 
> Any questions about the au? feel free to ask! any requests for scenes? feel free to tell me about them and maybe i'll write them!


End file.
